Do you CC relevant people and reply to all as a standard procedure?

Email works better when the right people are included from the start. Keeping everyone in the loop, by CC’ing or replying to all when it makes sense, avoids confusion, cuts down on back and forth, and keeps decisions clear for everyone involved.

Sending

It’s a good practice to include all relevant people when sending an email so anyone with an interest stays informed and aligned.

Some of the benefits of doing this are:

• Saves time by reducing back-and-forth and repeated updates
• Adds credibility by showing shared visibility and support
• Helps catch mistakes through additional eyes
• Promotes transparency so nothing is discussed behind the scenes

Replying

Some people might reply only to the sender of the email ('little r'), ignoring the fact that there were other persons included in the original email. Obviously the original sender intended to keep everyone in the loop, so it would be polite to CC everyone included on the original communication ('Reply All').

❌ Figure: Bad example - 'Little r' should be rarely clicked

✅ Figure: Good example - 'Reply All' so that everyone is kept in the loop

Exceptions

• If the sender requests a 'little r' reply
• If you are BBC'ed
• If not all recipients need to be informed
• If the opinions of some recipients do not matter as they are unlikely to disagree
• If the original email was to an alias with many subscribers, in general you should not Reply All

What if the other person drops relevant people?

Sometimes the other person will 'little r' instead of 'Reply All' by mistake. This can be problematic as those dropped off the loop are needed as part of the decision making.

If you are still on the loop, you should reply to the thread as soon as possible, adding back all those dropped from the loop.

✅ Figure: Good example - Adding back those incorrectly dropped from the loop

Video: Top 10+ Rules to Better Email Communication with Ulysses Maclaren